The rise of streaming media has unmistakably changed the way we watch our favourite TV shows. Fading rapidly is the necessity, and with it the desire, to wait week to week for individual episodes as more frequently people arrange for marathon session with their friends and watch groups of episodes together.
What this means is prolonged exposure to the same characters, locations and plotlines over a relatively short period of time. It’s only natural that the more familiar an audience is with a show, the more they recognise its tropes, and with this comes a great chance for added entertainment. Fan bases from all manner of shows come together to create games for everyone to enjoy, spreading the love on social media, born entirely out of a mutual love for a particular series.
Whether it’s bringing something fictional to life or just poking fun at sillier aspects of regular characters, here are four games that have been popular on social media and games you can play with your friends thanks to the fan base of your favourite shows:
Breaking Bad Bingo
Breaking Bad was once the king of addictive TV watching, meaning these bingo cards come in useful for when you inevitably use indoctrinating your friends as an excuse to watch it again. This particular version was crafted for the fourth season’s premiere, and stays the most adaptable given the show’s future dramatic twists. Here’s hoping that ‘someone dies’ doesn’t end up being one of your favourite characters.
Bingo remains one of the best games to try out with your favourite show, though the expansive nature of larger shows makes predicting their events much harder. Instead, Breaking Bad bingo is fast and frenzied, as you watch out for the careful colour co-ordination of the main characters (Marie being a big fan of purple) and wait for Mike to be sent in to once again clean up a sticky situation. There’s even a version made just for the series finale.
Game of Thrones – Spot the Difference
Game of Thrones is a show of immense scale and great detail, with Houses engrossed in rivalries and alliances that stretch way back into an amazing mythos created by George RR Martin. As changes between the series and the Song of Ice and Fire book series have steadily grown since its first season, Game of Thrones is poised to completely surpass the books into all new storylines and character revelations. It seems the best time, then, to invite your fellow book-reader friends over for a challenging game of spot the difference.
Alterations range from someone’s appearance or armour being slightly changed to entire characters being removed and storylines sent in very different directions. However, this game is not one for newcomers, as spoilers are in full force with corrections, citations and quotations coming thick and fast as you and your friends vie for the crown of being Westeros’ biggest fan. Any points of contention are brought towards the Game of Thrones Wiki, which chronicles the events of both the show and book series with differences meticulously listed for each episode.
The Walking Dead – Zombie Sweepstakes
Returning for their sixth season, The Walking Dead has been a global success, even leading to a spinoff series, Fear the Walking Dead, which received critical praise earlier this year. Another show to draw upon but now deviate heavy from its source material (Robert Kirkman’s ‘The Walking Dead’ comic series) there’s one thing you can be certain from each of the show’s episodes. Zombies, and lots of them.
A well-known stationery supplier decided to turn the gun-toting antics of Rick Grimes and his crew into a zombie sweepstakes that you can run with your friends, family and co-workers. Simply draw a character at random (up to eighteen people can play) from The Walking Dead’s current season and watch out for any zombies they kill each week. The action is frantic, so you’ll have to keep a sharp eye out, but a lucky draw can see you climbing the leaderboard quickly. Like many of TV’s hottest shows, however, no character is safe, so be sure to agree on some house-rules with your friends in case the character you draw is killed off.
New Girl – True American
New Girl’s in-show game that housemates Jess, Nick, Schmidt and Winston play is one of the most ludicrous you will come across. After appearing in an episode of New Girl, True American exploded with people online trying desperately to work out the rules so they could play it at home. Upon learning that the game was not only intentionally confusing, but also was never meant to be actually playable, fans came together to create their own set of working rules.
A bizarre mix of strategy, pop cultural knowledge and a sense of deduction are needed to play True American, all while moving across furniture strategically placed around a room orbiting a central table (it is played primarily as a drinking game, though soft drinks can easily be swapped out). And due to the fan-created nature of the game, it’s more than open to house rules and expansions that you and your friends develop the more you play.
Playing an extra game is a great way to spice up rewatching a series, or spur more conversation with your friends each week, and with the breadth of fictional games (particularly from sitcoms as How I Met Your Mother and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have also chimed in) growing, it seems there’ll always be new ways for fans to enjoy their favourite shows.